May 22, 2009

That's what we get for being more in touch with how we feel — we notice it, we admit it to ourselves and others. And we get attention because of it. If men were/are sad, who would know? Who would care?

But the linked blog post, by Meghan O'Rourke, asks — assuming it's really true that women are less happy than men and less happy than they were 35 years ago — why would this be so?

[T]he drop in happiness is pegged to an anxiety caused by the plethora of choices available (Barry Schwarz's paradox of choice) and women's feeling that they have to perform well across more categories. This is not exactly the same as struggling to balance so-called work and life (i.e., children): The study's authors are quick to point out that the decline in happiness is consistent across many categories, irrespective of marital or employment status or whether you have young children....

Oh, how I loathe this liberal meme about choice and happiness! Though liberals believe fondly in "the right to choose," they also love to say that choice makes us sad — but they only seem to mean that choice in the economic sphere is bad. (Notice how it softens you up to accept the crappy car the government wants you to drive and the good-for-everybody health care system it would like to provide.)

Anyway, why are women so sad? I think it's because we think about our feelings so much and care so much about being happy.

Women are more critical of themselves, says the study. It's a self-reported feeling. Maybe all these women are happy being more self-critical. I'm not sure how the interpreter of the study results can relate the actual results to something nebulous like contentment.

Also, I don't understand your point about choice in the economic sphere. Isn't it possible that more choice actually has bad consequences? Do you reject this idea prima facie?

I think the point is, that liberals are all for choice in other areas, like choice of lifestyles, choice of religion (or lack of...), choice whether to keep or abort, etc. But in the economic sphere, they seem to universally regard choice as bad. It's too stressful to have to pick your doctor, stay informed, have a variety of kinds of food to eat, cars to drive, places to live.

In those areas, they want to limit people's ability to make "bad" decisions.

Can a multitude of choices have bad consequences? Not that I can see. Having the ability to pick any doctor I want, based on whatever criteria is important to me seems like a better option than having one picked for me by a bureaucrat I don't even know. Being able to decide that lower mileage is worth it to have a safe vehicle for my family (or vice versa in my particular case) is better than a government mandated econo-box.

I think the fact that women tend to be so vicious and cruel to one another may have something to do with it. If I come to work with a mismatched tie or a rumpled suit, none of my male collegues will even notice. My female ones will notice and at most roll their eyes. If a woman shows up in a dated outfit or having put on a pound or two, she is sure to be destroyed by her female co-workers.

There is a buttinsky attitude in many liberals. Many sneer at people who prefer to live in the suburbs (the horror of suburban sprawl), or buy big houses (Mcmansions), or drive an SUV, or love Nascar, or choose to home school their kids, or make other choices. These are simply choices made with one's own free will and one's own money.

So why the disdain? I think that is what Althouse means. And does it contribute to a level of unhappiness?

Garage, the idea that government-run anything would be better -- and that government-run healthcare would be "good for everyone" -- is so laughable, I actually smiled more at your comment than at Chip's delightful animation. Which is kind of sad, actually.

But such sadness is momentary, thank goodness. Over the past 30 years, I have become much happier, because I figured out that happiness is a choice. It's an attitude, not a gift. No one else can make you happy, you have to do it for yourself. I think a lot of women are unhappy because they have unrealistic expectations of their mates, families, friends, and colleagues.

Oh how I detest this word, but I'll use it anyway -- it's very empowering to realize that no one else can control your happiness, but too many people buy what the popular culture is selling and thus spend their lives frustrated and miserable. They think they deserve more and don't understand why they are not getting it. They don't realize that the universe is not ordered to make them happy.

It's from doing stuff women are not interested in, encouraged by the idea that women ought obsess on the same stuff as men, as if what was satisfying ought to be the same across the sexes.

Unhappiness is aided by a tendency to find stuff for men to fix, whose survival value is testing of potential mates for reliability and fondness. Finding stuff for men to do requires finding something that's wrong.

In a perfect world, that's followed by showing the man who was out on the quest that you're satisfied with him, which makes him happy.

This story is told over and over in Get Smart, wildly popular with males in the 60s.

I think being in touch with feelings is really just looking for stuff that needs fixing, the initial move in the dialog.

If behavioral psychology (I said IF) has any validity, there should be a reinforcing "reward" for unhappiness in women which does not exist equally for men. Do women disproportionally get rewarded for being unhappy? Do men give them stuff or do things for them to try to cheer them up? Hmm? How do people react to an unhappy man? The same -- to the same extent?

"There is a buttinsky attitude in many liberals. Many sneer at people who prefer to live in the suburbs (the horror of suburban sprawl), or buy big houses (Mcmansions), or drive an SUV, or love Nascar, or choose to home school their kids, or make other choices. These are simply choices made with one's own free will and one's own money."

That is a good point. It does seem a lot of liberals are really angry about what other people do. Going around worrying about what cars other people drive and whether they take the train to work doesn't sound like a recipe for happiness. But of course that applies to both men and women and doesn't explain why women are more unhappy.

Happiness is something you look back on, not live through....It is the by product of purposeful activity, not the aim...It is truly amazing how many platitudes the idle brain can generate about the nature of happiness....We should all be grateful to have lives of sufficient comfort and leisure to contemplate the true meaning of happiness as opposed to where to find the next 2000 calories. Although, it should be noted, it is generally easier to find 2000 calories than lasting, meaningful joy.

When pursued for its own sake, happiness is like the horizon; it stretches further ahead, never to be reached, sometimes receding from view the faster you run.

When not pursued at all, it is found in batches, large and small, all when doing other things.

A little girl's laugh, a running dog, a joke from a friend, duty fulfilled, comforting the sick, ironing her shirt, calming the demented parent, giving directions, prayer, music, grade school baseball, popcorn at a movie, a negative mammogram, the impromptu class reunion at a funeral.

"Can we say feminism has failed then? When will Gloria Steinem be tried fro crimes against humanity?"

LOL. Of course if you tell your daughter, she doesn't have to be an A student if she doesn't want to be and can marry the boy she loves and have a baby if that is what makes her happy, O'Rourke and her ilk will be screaming that you are denying your daughter the opportunities feminists have fought for her to have.

I think Althouse is right, and the encouragement to constantly ponder one's own feelings is a big factor. Much of popular culture encourages women to be neurotic. Am I truly self-actualized? Am I truly happy? Am I truly in tune with so and so? And in much of the pop culture, these questions aren't really open-ended. A negative truth of some magnitude is assumed.

This is why I don't read women's magazines or watch women's shows. It's all about how to "fix" yourself. Stop thinking about your life and get on with having it!

Liberals are just the modern day decedents of the puritans only with government taking the place of God. What is that old saying about Puritans being worried that someone somehwere is happy? That is your modern liberal. Most of them go to bed at night worrying terribly that someone out there might be enjoying themselves while doing something unfasionable. It is a pretty miserable way to be if you ask me. But, they seem to like it.

There was a long time in history where women weren't allowed major roles in society. They had a place, and there's a certain freedom from angst in living up to the clear, and narrow, societal ideals.

Not all women were happy in that, but a good many were.

Now, the women who were happy in those clearly prescribed roles are told by society that they should be unhappy about being happy in those roles. So there's angst in both traditional and newly opened up roles. Women aren't allowed to just be content in who they are without someone, on one side or another or both sides, coming down on them. There's a constant judgment and second guessing forcing introspection on identity. That introspection rarely is tempered by thanksgiving, so there's always that not so fresh feeling of incomplete, unfulfilled identity.

Also, in the struggle for women's rights over the centuries there has always been a hope for that 'someday' that will bring joy with new opportunities. But now women have equality. They have fought and if they don't have wins in every realm, there is significant transformation of every part of society in the valuing of women.

So, there's a "now what?" aspect. A certain amount of happiness derives from our expectation of happiness in the future. We are driven by hope, and when we don't have anything to fight for, to struggle for, to strive for, other than increasingly nitpicking specifics or acknowledged freedom of harshly negative choices then there's a loss of energy and life. Humans are emotionally driven by struggle and progress. If we don't see an object greater than ourselves to work for we lose our sense of self.

To Ann's point, women do think more about their feelings then men do. Now when you put two women together, they often share their feelings. When one of the two is having a bad day, the other is likely to empathize and share in that feeling, at least to some extent.

I think the results show what happens as women have more and more contact with each other due to new and improved technology, particularly email and cellphones. Heck we can't stay out of the "fray" even if we try.

Sisterhood is not without its upside, but frankly, I think men just don't bring you down as much.

DOROTHY: Well, I -- I think that it -- that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em -- and it's that -- if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?

``In many soap operas, a permanent question is either implied or actually posed every day by the serial narrators. These questions are usually expressed in terms of doubt, indecision, or inner struggle. Which is more important, a woman's heart or a mother's duty? Could a woman be happy with a man fifteen years older than herself? Should a mother tell her daughter that the father of the rich man she loves ruined the fortunes of the daughter's father? Should a mother tell her son that his father, long believed dead, is alive, well, and a criminal? Can a good, clean Iowa girl find happiness as the wife of New York's most famous matinee idol? Can a beautiful young stepmother, can a widow with two children, can a restless woman married to a preoccupied doctor, can a mountain girl in love with a millionaire, can a woman married to a hopeless cripple, can a girl who married an amnesia case - can they find soap-opera happiness and the good, soap-opera way of life? No, they can't - not, at least, in your time and mine. The characters in Soapland and their unsolvable preplexities will be marking time on the air long after you and I are gone, for we must grow old and die, whereas the people of Soapland have a magic immunity to age, like Peter Pan and the Katzenjammer Kids. When you and I are in Heaven with the angels, the troubled people of Ivorytown, Rinsoville, Anacinburg, and Crisco Corners, forever young or forever middle-aged, will still be up to their ears in inner struggle, soul searching, and everlasting frustration.''

James Thurber ``II - Ivorytown, Rinsoville, Anacinburg, and Crisco Corners'' _Soapland_ in _The Beast in Me and Other Animals_ p.222

Happiness is a momentary feeling of victory over the stalking reality of a lack of money and fun. The women use the Un-Happiness meme to extend to describe their profound loneliness not filled by money and fun. It can only filled by an honest sharing of emotions with safe human(s). Today neither one can be found. The humans women are around are (1) dishonestly seeking only to get something, and (2) they are not safe any longer than it takes them to find a better offer. The women's intelligence and communications skills are off the chart high today, but traditional loyalty, honesty and good faith is only seen as a weakness no one can afford. Good luck to all you ladies out in today's jungle.

rhhardin: man, you're wonderfully weird. I try to imagine you actually reading the stuff you come up with.

As for the central topic: shit, I'm happier than I was 35 years ago, in spite of objective decline. How politically incorrect is this: I think estrogen depresses women and always has. (If it didn't, we'd never put up with men. Depression makes you just submissive enough.) We just hear more about it now. You know, "the problem that has no name"? That's its name.

If a woman shows up in a dated outfit or having put on a pound or two, she is sure to be destroyed by her female co-workers. I really feel bad for women. It is a viper pit among them.Are you sure your experience of this is not filtered through the prevalent media meme that women are vicious towards each other? I've been working in various jobs/professions for 40 years, including office worker, musician, linguistic researcher, teacher, high-tech telecom worker, and medical technical writer. I have never witnessed this so-called phenomenon in any of these walks in life, not even once. Moreover, I have also not experienced other women complaining about it.

In the 80's, the meme was that women were superior to men, that they always supported each other, especially in the workplace. I didn't see any evidence of that, either.

In my experience, women are no worse (or better) than men. "Destroyed by her female co-workers," "a viper pit among them." This is nonsense.

"I've been working in various jobs/professions for 40 years, including office worker, musician, linguistic researcher, teacher, high-tech telecom worker, and medical technical writer. I have never witnessed this so-called phenomenon in any of these walks in life, not even once. Moreover, I have also not experienced other women complaining about it."

All we can do is trade anicdotes. I have three sisters and a wife and numerous friends and have worked professionally for almost 20 years and my experience is precisly the opposite. There are at least two female high level people where I work now that are incapable of working with other women. I find that a lot of women are just nasty and shallow to one another. This is especially true of women under 35.

Genuine happiness (closely related to love) has nothing to do with feelings. How can a woman experience real happiness, if she's focused like a laser on herself and her feelings?

To understand why women are unhappy, read some women's magaizes. Hell, just look at the covers of the dozen or so at the grocery check out. Over the last 3 or 4 decades, women have been bombarded with messages that they can have it all, that they should get in touch with their feelings, that finding their "soul mate" is the key to love and happiness (subtext -- if she ain't happy, it's his fault), that whatever's the latest in makeup and fashion will make them happier, and that a better relationship requires but the latest manipulative trick to get him to do what she wants.

No wonder they're confused and unhappy. It's the inevitable result of decades of being treated like a mushroom. Anyone who reads a steady diet of that crap can't help it.

You (the collective you, not you, Ann) can put yourself there very easily if you focus on what you don't have instead of what you do have. You can pick at hangnails and think you are sick, or you can look at the bigger picture.

You could think about how unhappy you would be if you lived in Afghanistan, where all your choices were removed.

You could also stop judging happiness by acquisitions - yeah, so the guy over there has a nicer house than you, big deal - you still live better than the kings of old - you have things, which you take for granted, that they would have bankrupted their kingdoms to acquire - hot and cold running water on demand, light on demand, refrigerators, just imagine!

You are too restrictive in your sentence (this is liberal me just being buttinsky-ish, of course). The ability to butt in knows no political stripe. For every liberal telling you to drive a Prius and hug a tree, there is a conservative admonishing you for wearing over-revealing clothing and having pre-marital sex.

The focus, not the presence, of buttinskyism varies as a function of liberal/conservative.

My reply to buttinskys is either a fixed stare, and/or a polite request that they repeat their statement, at which point I say "Oh".

I question the conclusion of the study. Not WHY are women more unhappy than 35 years ago. I question whether they are, in fact, more unhappy. Standards of happiness, like beauty, evolve over time. The fact the women of today rate their happiness a "4" on a scale of 1 - 10 and the women of yesteryear rated their happiness a "6" does NOT prove the women of today are less happy. It maybe that a "4" today equates with "6" from 35 years ago. It may be nothing more than grade inflation in reverse.

"For every liberal telling you to drive a Prius and hug a tree, there is a conservative admonishing you for wearing over-revealing clothing and having pre-marital sex."

Please tell us when any conservative ever told you that you were wearing too revealing clothing or shouldn't engage in pre-martial sex. I have spent my entire life around conservatives and have never had anything approaching that experience. Further, I don't know one conservative who objects to pre-martial sex. Outside of a few evangelicals, who were btw liberal as hell, I have never met anyone of my generation who embraced an outright prohibition on pre-martial sex. Yeah, most conservatives I know think cheating on your wife or having sex with huge numbers of people is a bad thing, but I have never once been told by a conservative that premarital sex is always bad.

Your statement is just not true. It just an urban myth repeated by liberals to make themselves feel better about their tendency to want to control everyone else's lives.

The study said that whatever was going on wasn't related specifically to the workplace, or to motherhood, or to marriage. That it was an across the board decline in happiness, NOT shadowed by male results.

Why are men happier? (Or less unhappy if you choose to put it that way?)

Focusing on the reading material of intelligent women, such as our Professor, does raise the issue of their reading thousands of Good advice articles for women, some of which contain good advice. Most are filler written to meet a deadline to publish or not get paid. Over time the feeling that they have not done enough smart things, can become a black cloud of self criticism. So unhappiness is a self indictment. Just get out and around real friends who share ups and downs of their lives, and the black cloud looks entirely different. My best friend says, "perfection is a form of cruelty". Also get a dog.

Our forbearers had it tough - their babies died of pneumonia, there were no antibiotics, pregnancy could kill you, as could any infection, food was hard to come by and it was a full time job setting aside for the winter - they washed their clothes in the rivers, made their own clothes, soap, etc.... they had something to complain about.

We have it too easy, are too far removed from reality and too many of us wallow in self important self pity.

I guess that article makes me mad. Irritated and disgusted. LOL. But not unhappy.

'The freedom to pick from many choices brings the increased responsibility to accept the consequences of your choice.'

It’s not so much the consequences of your choice as it is the pressure of having to make the *right* choice (whatever that means). As Joan said, for many, when they have less control of the outcome, when they become more powerless than what’s comfortable, is when they become miserable. When in truth, it’s the opposite. Happiness is a choice. It comes from within, not from how you look or what have. And we certainly get bombarded enough with the latter.

For some reason I've now got "Madam Blueberry" in my head singing, "I'm so blue-oo-oo blue-oo-oo-oo Ooo-ooo, I am so blue, I don't know what to do." This includes a riff about how all the things in her life just aren't good enough and don't bring her joy. Her possessions are chipped or old or faded. She is rescued by some sales-vegetables who inform her that "Happiness waits at the Stuff Mart. All you need is lots... more... stuff."

Not that consumerism is the only issue, but I think that it does work to make people feel dissatisfied.

Madison -- I agree that you are making a false statement. There really aren't conservative scolds who you actually know, though we all know the leftist nut who chides us about recycling, the car we drive, etc. I heard a scold the other day tell me how it was wrong for drug companies to make money selling stuff that alleviates flu.

Those conservatives are out there (Gamblin' Bill Bennett, for example), but you don't actually come into contact with them. This suggests that they are much rarer. Mostly, they are bogeymen for people like you.

Not having a choice means that you don't have to stew and cry about having made the wrong choices, but I find it very hard to believe that the choices themselves cause unhappiness.

I've discussed this with my husband some... any choice made to do something is a choice made not to do something else. I'd have loved to make the military a career but I chose to stay home with small children, now I'm in the stereotypical position of stay-at-home Moms who's children are nearly grown where I've got no real work History and I have to try to decide what I'm going to do next.

But I realize that had I made a different choice I'd simply have *different* problems and different regrets. Because the choices that we make usually aren't between a good thing and a bad thing, but between competing good things.

And the question becomes... do I want to wallow in the lost chances? Or should I make a point, daily, of being thankful that it was possible for me to make the choice I made and have the freedom that I had over my days and activities for 15 years?

"I love how Althouse posts and mocks an article based on ridiculous stereotypes and voila! commenters chime in with more stereotypes, then Beth comes along and stereotypes the stereotypists. So meta!

Your comment, Beth, reminded me how the funniest people (not always the happiest) are the ones who have had rough times in their life. Sometimes life just gets too absurd to try to comprehend. And we get past trying to make sense of things and just are happy for what we have, and can laugh about what we don't.

May your cheerfulness continue and be affirmed by a speedy recovery and long-lasting health.

None of this is news to me. In my own professional experiences over the years as a supervisor or manager of many different groups, crews of just women are the most challenging in terms of daily dealing with interpersonal conflicts,little acts of revenge, permanent grudges, and dramas that have nothing to do with work. Crews of all guys, they just seem to get to work. The rare guy conflict at work is a brief flare-up that usually gets resolved immediately, and then they go out together for beers later.

One of my techniques, no kidding, has been to get at least one man on a previously all-women crew. It's like putting the control rods into the nuclear pile. I don't know why, but it works.

It maybe that a "4" today equates with "6" from 35 years ago. Well, that's exactly true of dress sizes! I've gone down one or two without losing an inch! LOL.

Beth: good luck!

"For every liberal telling you to drive a Prius and hug a tree, there is a conservative admonishing you ...To drive an SUV because BIG is the AMERICAN WAY! (Anyway, if you've seen one tree you've seen 'em all.)

thanks, folks, for the good wishes. I have a big stack of books to read and all should be well.

In the meantime, I plan to enjoy a little excess.

I agree with Rose's comment, overall. I think this survey is bunk, but in general, we all have the luxury of reflection in ways our forebears didn't. I also have no clue what criteria fits that allows us to compare "happiness" now with that 35 years ago. Silly things, surveys.

My grandmother raised 8 kids on a large farm in Western Kansas in the 1940s and 50s. I doubt she spent much time reflecting on whether she was happy or not. She was just too busy. Introspection is a luxury of the priveleged. I suspect a lot of this poll is the result of our adjusting our expectations more than women being any worse off.

Men tend to show their unhappiness through anger rather than sadness.Paddy O: right. Or through stoical silence till they blow their heads off, which men do at a far higher rate than women. Women threaten suicide more, men do it more, and by surer methods.

Bottom line: 1) People are unhappy. Buddhists call it "dukkha." Life is unsatisfactory, and then you die. 2) Amend that: people with unhappy temperaments are unhappy. Some people have happy temperaments. Some people are also brought up right. Those people tend to be contented and grateful regardless of circumstances -- and of gender.

My mother managed an office for several years and did the same thing. She said there was nothing worse than being in an office filled entirely with women.This is my wife's opinion as well. Except for the 4 doctors and 1 male nurse all the office employees are women. They are evil to each other at times.

In my own experience women tend to hold grudges ... for a long time. They brood and sulk and just dwell on the bad things. Men tend to get upset, throw something, yell, whatever, and its over.

Married women tend to become focused on being moms/wives. It becomes their life. Toss in a career and they probably feel like life never stops and they have no time for themselves. And the become unhappy. Once they decide to find something outside of that circle to do that is just for them - happiness can return. I've seen it in a couple of different women. Men - most of us have hobbies that takes us out of that circle so we stay happy. Plus we're a whole lot simpler creature.

Beth - best of luck. My wife recovered quickly from her hysterectomy. I hope the same for you.

Madison -- I agree that you are making a false statement.There really aren't conservative scolds who you actually know, though we all know the leftist nut who chides us about recycling, the car we drive, etc.

How can people actually know who Madison "actually knows," unless you actually know Madison in real life (and you might not "actually know" even then)? How can you possibly "actually know" his statement is a false one, in HIS experience?

Good grief.

For my part, I envy those of you who in real life either haven't heard scolding of either type, or have heard scolding of just one them. Because I sure as hell have been in the presence, and even the target, of BOTH such types. Which--in my world, can't speak for yours, of course--actually DO exist.

Go ahead and tell me what I do and do not know, if you like ...

... but please explain to me why shouldn't just laugh at you for presuming to tell me, a stranger, what I have and have not experienced, and the types of people I have and have not observed.

Two more, you have to guess less happy because they're talking to each other.

Woman with old dog, likely happy in the walk but sad that the dog is slowing down. Will she know enough to get a puppy right away after she puts the dog down?

Two more women, probably unhappy because they're teenagers on a symbolic bike ride that will last no more than five minutes, indicating kid boredom. Fake bike riders never try pointing the bike in one direction for a half hour at a time. It's always around the neighborhood and quit.

Two more teens, they look happy to me, from what they're doing. The walk will take a while.

"women are less happy than men and less happy than they were 35 years ago"

You're just impossible to please. Man has invented the vacuum cleaner, the Swiffer Duster, the self cleaning oven, super duper food processing gadgets, we even let you vote, and you still complain. What's up with that?

I can say that I live in a liberal town. I grew up in a conservative town. The pressures to conform one way or another in each place feel/felt the same to me.

I will repeat: If someone gives you unwanted advice, the best tactic is to ask them to repeat it. And then say "Oh" in a very non-committal way before walking away. (Shoulder shrug while walking optional)

You know why people are unhappy, including women? Because they're stuck driving a car. As I bike to work, grinning foolishly, I rarely see commuters driving. If I'm walking home, the people driving by in cars? They're not smiling.

Seven Machos: Read my comment again. I explicitly said I know examples of both types. I also explicitly put forth an exception if you know Madison in real life (though, true, I included the caveat that you still might know).

"You know why people are unhappy, including women? Because they're stuck driving a car. As I bike to work, grinning foolishly, I rarely see commuters driving. If I'm walking home, the people driving by in cars? They're not smiling."

That might have to do with the cyclist who just road past them at a red light and ran the light to get in front of them and hold up traffic. But that is a different thread. As long as you are safe cyclist who doesn't do stupid shit like ride between stopped cars and run lights and stop signs, good for you.

The pressures to conform one way or another in each place feel/felt the same to me.That statement makes sense to me, based on my own experiences. It might not make sense to other people, based on theirs. As for the sincerity and truth of the statement itself, I can only rely that Madison knows his own experience and mind and is accurately presenting it.

All those citing examples of working with catty women--well, I worked with catty men! They were awful gossips, running to each other all the time to talk about others. There were three of them.

The women in the office were perfectly pleasant.

Life varies.

There's really no reason to be subjected to cattiness as an adult outside the workplace. I know plenty of drama queens, but I have none of them for friends. I am the last person anyone goes to with gossip because my reaction to it is so boring. ("Oh. Sounds like a misunderstanding," or "Oh. I guess I've never noticed that.") Don't invite people to share their neurotic drama with you, and they won't.

My wife is so happy she can hardly contain herself. Whenever she comes home, she literally throws herself into my loving arms, we embrace, we kiss, follow it up with five or six cocktails and make love for two or three hours.

Then we have a nice candlelit dinner, a couple bottles of good wine, make love for another three or four hours, and nod off.

Then, in the middle of the night, one of us will wake the other up, and we make love for another two to three hours and nod off.

After getting up in the morning we usually make love before and after breakfast (sometimes even during breakfast), and then take a long hike to get the blood flowing, follow that up reading five or six newspapers and take a nap.

This is pretty much how we spend five of seven days of the week. The other two we spend in deep sleep.

I can only assume the reason she's so happy is that she's married to a flaming liberal, and is one herself.

It's probably the conservative women who are having problems trying to find something to be happy about.

Here is an example. When people come over, they drink something and ask if we recycle. When I say no, they are polite but tend to frown disapprovingly. I swear some even smuggle the cans and bottles they used out of my house and I guess take them home where the refuse will be safely placed in a re-cycling bin from which it will re-join non-reclycables somewhere in the garbage collection cycle.

I believe re-cycling is a hoax. But that is just me and now I have cast away the common ground I just found earlier.

RH: I have a dog; we've had as many as three at any one time. Alas, two died in the last couple of years after long lives, and until we stop traveling so much and decide whether we're moving or not, we won't take on another puppy, for his or her sake. Early, consistent training is key, as you know.

I once rode my BMR K1200RS 7,500 miles in ten days. That made me very happy. I'm betting few women would be happy doing that, even on a comfy non-hunched-over K1200LT (Had one of those too) as a rider or on the pillion.

So glad I'm completely out of touch with my feminine side. Slap happy, in fact.

Just a personal theory: Women believed that having the same opportunities/choices as men would make them happier. They have discovered that it doesn't, or, in the alternative, that while it may make them happier it also comes along with a whole bunch of other issues/problems they hadn't thought about. So they're dissappointed and more unhappy than men, who have known for quite some time, because its all they have known, that having all these choices/opportunities is no guarantee of happiness.

I also think that, for women of my generation (i'm 35), there are fewer role models for how to balance your life. For all the challeneges in my life about how to balance family/work/self, I can look to my Dad or a slew of other men I knew personally to see how they managed it. For a lot of women of my generation, their lives are so different from their mother's, that they are on their own in terms of trying how to figure out how to balance everything.

I will give a good example of a buttinski liberal; my doctor. Every time I take a physical I get asked if I own guns and if they are locked up. When I say yes and no they are not locked up, I get a disapproving look and lecture. If and when I ever have children, I fully expect to have to go toe to toe with CPS over the fact I own a gun.

"My grandmother raised 8 kids on a large farm in Western Kansas in the 1940s and 50s."

I think I've posted this here before, but it's fitting again. Something my great-great-great grandmother said when she turned 100 in 1920.“Work. That’s the secret of being a centenarian,” yesterday declared Mrs. Eliza McConnell 810 East Forty-fifth Street (Los Angeles), who will celebrate her one hundredth birthday anniversary Monday. And when Mrs. McConnell says “work” she means just that.

In the days when Cynthia, Indiana was a straggling frontier settlement, Mrs. McConnell and the other women would help the menfolk plow the field and clear the forest with axes, after the washing and household chores were finished. Mrs. McConnell was married and had nine children. When her husband was killed in the Civil War she was left alone to do the farm work and care for the children.

“Soft,” Mrs. McConnell contemptuously refers to the present generation. “They can’t compare with the boys and girls I knew. Imagine a flapper with seven children to support. The world is full of weaklings.”

Mrs. McConnell laughed at the modern housewife who requires servants.The picture of her smiling in the link suggests she was happy.

In another article from the time, she notes, "39 years ago I came to California. Since then I have lived here where it's easiest to live and hardest to die. Indeed, I don't believe there is anything astounding about long life in Los Angeles. What is more, with all the members of my family talking about diet, I go right along eating just about as I please. If I want coffee three times a day--and I frequently do--I have it."

We lost our dog after a long life about 6 years ago. I didn't choose another dog. I as minding my own business (like any good liberal!), and then suddenly a dog chose me. Actually, he chose my wife. Looked at her with those big sad brown eyes and then sat in her lap.

That's how we got our present dog.

We are very lucky that our neighbor's kids adore our dog, and that they lost their own dog to age 2 or 3 years ago, and they love to dog-sit when we travel.

In another article from the time, she notes, "39 years ago I came to California. Since then I have lived here where it's easiest to live and hardest to die. Indeed, I don't believe there is anything astounding about long life in Los Angeles. What is more, with all the members of my family talking about diet, I go right along eating just about as I please. If I want coffee three times a day--and I frequently do--I have it."

Introspection in large doses is the road to perdition. I think of introspective people and I think of Silvia Plath or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Whatever fame their introspection brought them, it didn't bring them happiness. Generally those who do are happy. Those who dither and brude are not.

"They have a richer fantasty life (scoring the winning touchdown, geting the winning hit, sleeping with the most desired girl) so even if they never do these things they get a taste of the experience."

There is a lot to be said for fantasy. Think about the world of Peanuts for a second. Seriously. Everyone in that strip was miserable and pinning for unrequited love except for the dog who lived in a complete fantasy world. I think Shulz was onto something.

rh: I get your drift and appreciate the advice, but the truth is--while I love the breed we've had, and still have one of--I want to switch to a larger one, especially for my son's sake. In addition, due to a personal quirk of mine, I want to get two, not just one. So wait it is (but no brooding ... we made the decision and that's that; no glance-backs or second thoughts).

Thanks again for your thoughts. And now I have to ignore this more diverting sub-conversation and get busy for 7M (between other equally less fun tasks).

Really! Minding his own business except when it comes to abortion laws in states where the liberal does not live, or the cars that other people drive, or whether people are free to choose their doctor or health plan, or can keep a reasonable share of the fruits if another person chooses to work harder and smarter, or, I could go on, but the definition of liberal is buttinski, which is why liberals are so hated.

The key to happiness is to do the things you want to do, not the things you feel pressured to do. The only times I am miserable are when I'm forced to act contrary to my desires.

My suggestion...fencing. Take up fencing. There is no better feeling than having a blade in your hand, being in complete balance, lunging, feeling your blade strike your opponent. It's visceral, it's beautiful, it's violent, all the best things about sport. And unlike most sports, you can play it between the sexes. Women are at very little disadvantage against men in the sport.

And in addition; it teaches you a very valuable lesson: no one is invincible. The worst fencer in the world can be touched by the worst. You will get hit sometimes. But that's okay everybody does.

Yeah Liberals organize entire movements for purpose of preventing some town they will never visit much less live in allowing a wall mart to open and saying a prayer before a high school football game. But it is the conservatives who are buttinskis.

Well, I guess I've been lucky then. Sure, I've met some pretty unpleasant women in the workplace. But then I've met some pretty unpleasant men, too. (I'm working with one right now, as are all the other unfortunate men and women in my office.) But unpleasant people are the exception; most people are decent and do their best to get along.

On the other hand, the women I work with tend to be rather cerebral types, as are the men. My workplace is definitely not a hotbed of seething emotion, grudges, viciousness, etc. People of both genders are working quietly at computers or in the lab. Maybe the type of work is a factor.

I definitely have noticed, though, that in large corporations women are favoured for promotions over men (who are often much more competent and deserving), and that the younger women just take this as their due. I've seen a lot of incompetent female managers, but not vicious, grudge-holding, pit-viper ones.

Let me add my wishes for a speedy recovery, and also some advice: whatever you do, do NOT think about your plagerism story from yesterday until you are fully recovered--you don't want to hurt yourself laughing!

"Well, now you have. HOWEVER, I'm not that kind of conservative--much more a libertarian than a conservative, actually, and I have absolutely no desire to make it illegal for adults to do so."

So if you are 28 years old and unmarried and have been dating a woman for year and plan to marry her, you still shouldn't have sex? Really?

Moreover, even if you beleive that, have you ever told someone that they are wrong to have sex to their face? I don't mean in the context of an intellectual conversation about the topic. I mean, you hear someone in your office mention that they were moving in with their girlfriend and you tell them how immoral it is? If you did, you are a buttinski conservative. If you haven't, then you are a lot better than liberals are about subjects such as guns and recycling.

Kirk Parker: While I agree with the larger, symbolic point, the problem with your friend's statement is that, in fact, someone (a man) HAS written a book with that precise title. And there's a least one with "What Men Want: ..." at the start of the title.